Originally Posted by
pushmyredbutton
AA has an identical $61 fare from OAK-DFW, maybe that's what UA was trying to match?
NK has a similar fare on DFW-OAK. F9 has a similar fare on DFW-SFO. Neither of them have an advance purchase requirement. AA has an identical BE fare filed DFW-SFO. AA, AS, and UA all have 21-day advance purchase fares filed for $20 more.
Originally Posted by
spin88
maybe, but that is really, really stupid programing. AA's fare itself is sort of stupid too, but the flight leaves oak at 11:49pm (i.e. its a red-eye), but even then the BE is rather strange at $61, but perhaps that is what you get when you have 29 seats empty the morning before a late evening red-eye.
OK, so as nearly as I can tell: If a fare is low, UA is stupid for selling a low fare. If a fare is high, UA is stupid for trying to overcharge customers. Did I get that right? If this is stupidity, it's a shared stupidity between the major carriers in the market.
The likelihood that they'll sell the fare to
anyone today, one hour prior to departure, is quite low. The buckets simply normalized to permit SDC, the way that they were always supposed to but haven't always done. If they do find someone who's within 5 minutes of the airport and thinks, "whee, four hours in a middle seat for $61; Dallas, here I come," then that's $61 they wouldn't otherwise have.
UA opens G inventory when they don't think they can sell the seats at a higher price point; here, they're trying to do so in a way that preserves the business traveler market segmentation.